The sun blazed within the space, yet a chill seeped through every pore and into the bones. When the Emperor fell silent, it was as though the entire world had gone utterly still.
The sounds of warriors and demons clashing weapons beside them faded away. The distant sounds of the Warp twisting faded away. Even the sound of Little Apple playing from Little Cousin's MP3 player, neither near nor far, faded away as well.
The silence seemed to stretch time itself. Only when the Emperor spoke did the sounds of the outside world return, accompanied by his golden decree:
"You are very clever."
Deathstroke smiled, flicking the cigarette in his hand and blowing the thin smoke far away, where it curled through the air. "You flatter me. Your kingly rule is much like tyranny. Everything humanity possesses is your private property, so you can dispose of useless tools as you please. You chose to eliminate them."
"What you say is also true." The Emperor had nothing he could not admit. He displayed a calm candor. "Every tool I created before had a certain chance of corruption and degeneration. They were imperfect, and thus unqualified. Banning and discarding AI was merely the first step. In the future, all of them will be eliminated by history."
Su Ming curled his lip. The Emperor made it sound easy, but it was another matter entirely when one considered that all those so-called tools were people.
"I'm not like you. Perhaps it's because I don't have as vast a domain as you do." The Mercenary shrugged. As a mortal secretly controlling several different universes, he said this to a god who could not even control a Single Universe. "If my tools aren't useful enough, I always find a way to upgrade them so they can